In a huge victory for Facebook privacy advocates, a federal judge has rejected Facebook’s request to toss a lawsuit alleging that Facebook’s facial recognition technology violates user privacy. “The Court accepts as true plaintiffs’ allegations that Facebook’s face recognition technology involves a scan of face geometry that was done without plaintiffs’ consent,” U.S. District Judge…

Last week, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila called a hearing on Facebook’s motion to dismiss a long-running privacy case against it. The case began in 2012, and features a group of plaintiffs seeking $15 billion in damages for Facebook’s alleged violation of the Federal Wiretap Act, plus numerous other violations. The case was dismissed last…

Facebook launched its trending news section in January 2014, displaying a list of topics in the upper righthand corner of every Facebook user’s news feed. Many in the news industry expressed concern about what could happen to freedom of expression and the dissemination of information if Facebook decided to take an active hand in shaping…

In a move that’s certain to appeal to privacy-minded users, it was reported this week that Facebook is testing a disappearing messages capability in its Messenger app. A Twitter account called @iOSAppChanges published several screenshots of the reported disappearing messages feature. The images include text that reads “You turned on disappearing messages. New messages will…

According to Facebook’s biannual transparency report released this week, government requests for Facebook user data rose 13 percent in the second half of 2015. The number of posts the site censored to comply with local laws around the world also doubled. Facebook received 19,235 requests for user data from the U.S. government, by far the…

Facebook product manager Melissa Luu-Van wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review this week detailing the company’s unique approach to helping users protect their privacy. Instead of focusing solely on the technological aspect of cyber security, Luu-Van says that Facebook also addresses the “human context” of these problems in three empathetic ways.  First, the…

The school system in Orange County, Florida, renewed a program this week that allows it to spy on students’ social media profiles using monitoring software called SnapTrends. The software, which the school district pays about $18,000 annually to use, “grabs and analyzes” social media messages posted from the district’s campuses. It’s capable of combing through…

According to Facebook, more than one million people connected to the site in the past month over the secure and private Tor network. Though Tor is often associated with illicit “dark web” activities, it ‘s also a valuable tool for users who want to completely preserve their privacy. The network functions by disguising users’ identify…

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled this week that two lawyers accused of spying on a plaintiff’s private Facebook page can be prosecuted for attorney misconduct. The case began in 2007 when a police officer allegedly hit a pedestrian, Dennis Hernandez, with his car. Hernandez claimed he suffered permanent injuries, and sued the police department,…

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg raised some eyebrows at the company’s annual F8 developer conference last week, appearing to take a veiled shot at Presidential candidate Donald Trump in his keynote speech. “I hear fearful voices calling for building walls and distancing people they label as ‘others,’” he said. “I hear them calling for blocking free…